SNEEM, IRELAND — The estate called Mermaid Isle is something of a watery utopia. Seals cruise by the house. There is an otter colony. Shoals of fish enter the rock pools just outside the
windows. There are no sea sirens, but shark eggs, nicknamed mermaid’s purses, wash ashore.

The property, which faces the Atlantic, is like a private nature reserve that “becomes part of you and you become part of it,” said Lori Kearney, a writer who owns the place along with Kevin O’Farrell,
both of them originally New Yorkers.